If you have big boobs you need the support. If you go bra less they would be down to your knees over time, or so they say. There is no way I could work out bra less I wouldn't even leave the house bra less. If you have small boobs you can get away with it.

Well why is it women only recently started wearing the undergarment? I am not a believer that they will be down to your knees over time if you did not wear a bra. I have heard women fear that outcome but seen no emperical proof of same. I think breasts just naturally sag over time regardless of what is done short of surgery.

I had to chuckle the gallery where people posted pics of their boobs, and were complaining despite having an awesome pair.

Female breasts are obviously wobbly masses with no skeletal or muscular support, and tend to flop around. The main goal of the bra is to control them .....for whatever purpose.

From the looks of the website, the problem isn't the bra (as far as cancer risk), the problem is the design. Assuming the technical problems could be resolved to permit circulation of lymph (assuming it's 100% confirmed as the real culprit), then bras would no longer be "dangerous". There would also need to be additional redesign to solve the flaws related to weight distribution.

Isn't this the real issue that needs to be analyzed? Your personal issue with the difficulties in unfastening a bra, describing it as a contraption, could this be a case for Freudian fanatics?

By the way, I wear bras every day but my physical outline and even my nipples are sometimes still disernible beneath a tight shirt, and I often get disdainful looks from other women. I have learned to stop caring about their reactions, there are limitations to clothing choices for a woman with 36DD's that they just cannot ever empathize with.

I was looking at those pictures and all I could think was total disbelief that this is actually what passes as "normal". I don't mean to sound crude, but I've seen a fair sample size of women's breasts, and every pair I've ever seen has been better than every pair I saw on that website. And I'm not meaning that to brag. I would never say that all the girls I've seen topless have been way better than "normal". But I can say with certainty that I've never seen any breasts like those in my life.

Except for the pictures of Asian girls with really small breasts. That I have seen.

But the ones with huge gaps in the middle? Never. Or those strange ones that are really long but really thin? Never. Or the ones that literally look like a kind of flattened pancake? Nope.

I wouldn't say any of this to those girl's faces - I'm not quite that rude - but I really don't think that's a fair sampling of "normal". If it is, then I've been getting only fantastically hot girls for the last 7 years.

I wear a bra only when I go into town, another person's house, or work. Not when I am in the house or in my flower garden. Same goes for make-up. But I'd go without make-up before I'd go without a bra.

For active women who have larger breasts, it's painful when you are doing something active (I play raquetball, softball, soccer and also workout every day) they bounce hard and slap the skin as well. I've actually thought about breast reduction surgery so I didn't have to wear a bra at all, but I have tested positive for the BRCA2 gene and have a high probability that I will end up losing them both anyway at some point. My mother lost hers at 36, and her mother at 42 so eventually I will just have them out and get a smaller implant that won't require me to wear a bra.

I only wear them at work, or when workin out. I am well aware of the breast cancer risks, and I've always made sure I never wear bras with underwires or that put pressure points on any part of me. I just use them to support evenly, and as soon as I am home, I take it off unless I am doing something really active.

Not all of them of course. There were some disfigured and lopsided ones in there too. Some looked like chunky paleolithic fertility goddess boobs.
......but there were numerous pictures like this (here's a couple from gallery page 5).

You are of course absolutely right, joepistole, in pointing out that bras are a remarkably modern invention. I put this down to the uninventiveness of women. If men had boobs, bras would have been around since Ancient Egyptian times. Rameses II would have been wearing one!

After reading joepistole posts on this thread, I think he could have simplified things and merely stated he didn't like bras. For instance,

It appears they are a relatively recent development in the anals of mankind

Click to expand...

Isn't true at all.

During recorded history, women have used a variety of garments and devices to cover, restrain, or elevate their breasts. Brassiere or bikini-like garments are depicted on some female athletes in the 1400s BC during the Minoan civilization era. Similar functionality was achieved by both outerwear and underwear.